Want and wealth equally harden the human heart, as frost and fire are both alien to the human flesh. Famine and gluttony alike drive away nature from the heart of man.
Interpretation
This quote highlights how both desire and excess can corrupt human nature.
Theodore Parker's quote suggests that both the strong desire for wealth and the greed for more can lead to a hardening of the human heart, much like how extreme temperatures can damage flesh. He draws parallels between the destructive forces of famine and gluttony, arguing that both extremes can alienate individuals from their natural and compassionate instincts, ultimately making them more self-centered.
In practice
In a discussion about materialism during a seminar, this quote can illustrate the dangers of greed.
A democracy,- that is a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people; of course, a government of the principles of eternal justice, the unchanging law of God; for shortness' sake I will call it the idea of Freedom.
The books which help you most are those which make you think the most. The hardest way of learning is by easy reading; every man that tries it finds it so. But a great book that comes from a great thinker, — it is a ship of thought, deep freighted with truth, with beauty too.
No man is so great as mankind.
Outward judgment often fails, inward judgment never.
You may not, cannot, appropriate beauty. It is the wealth of the eye, and a cat may gaze upon a king.
Let us do our duty in our shop or our kitchen, in the market, the street, the office, the school, the home, just as faithfully as if we stood in the front rank of some great battle, and knew that victory for mankind depended on our bravery, strength, and skill. When we do that, the humblest of us will be serving in that great army which achieves the welfare of the world.
I was perfectly content before I was born, and I think of death as the same state.
Imagine the Creator as a low comedian, and at once the world becomes explicable.
The Old Ones were, the Old Ones are, and the Old Ones shall be. Not in the spaces we know, but between them. They walk serene and primal, undimensioned and to us unseen.
By suppressing differences and peculiarities, by eliminating different civilizations and cultures, progress weakens life and favors death
There's nothing like eavesdropping to show you that the world outside your head is different from the world inside your head.
The linguistic clumsiness of tourists and students might be the price we pay for the linguistic genius we displayed as babies, just as the decrepitude of age in the price we pay for the vigor of youth.
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